Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Anxious People, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Parenting and Fear
Marriage, Conflict, and Communication
Mental Health and Connection
The Modern World
Assumptions
Summary
Analysis
Back in his interview with Roger, Jack tries to get the conversation back on track. But Roger says that people like the rabbit are manipulating the market and that everything is fake—even his former employers were pretending. Roger says some doctor said he was burnt out, and he spent his entire last year at work working on made-up projects. His bosses just felt sorry for him. Anna-Lena is doing the same thing now with the rabbit. Jack asks if the space between the walls in the apartment is big enough for a grown man to stand in. Roger says there’s probably about three feet of dead space because whoever split the apartments is an idiot. Jack leaves to speak to Jim.
Burnout was deemed an official diagnosis in 2019. Roger is older, and he doesn’t appreciate this change to the world—as he sees it, it just led to his job coddling him until they finally forced him to retire. In this sense, Roger doesn’t see acknowledging mental health problems—which encompass burnout—as a positive thing. As Jack learns that there’s dead space between the apartments’ walls, it seems more likely to him that the robber is there, injured. He remains focused on trying to save the robber, rather than on listening to Roger’s tale of woe.
Themes
